Saturday, January 22, 2005

Links!

Building a Conservative culture -
A look at the tally in the US. Things are not so good here in The Great Wet North.
Adam Daifallah offers suggestions for changing that. It's very much like what I've said all along, but he seems, to my eyes, to put too much emphasis on rich white knights coming to our rescue. I say, grab a hammer and saw and let's get this thing built. You and me, right now. Got a blog? Get one. Can't find the time? Comment away. You have friends, right? Learn to talk the talk, and then walk the walk. Got a few bucks? Find an organization and give. If you can organize, so much the better. Recently I was heartened to see a TV ad from a pro life organization that I support. "Hey! I did that..."
I don't have a problem with white knights, but I'm not sitting around waiting for one.
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Canada -
More proof that a great many Canadians have no sense of humour whatsoever. Or perhaps they do but they are so blinded by envy and jealousy of the U.S. that their minds explode when they turn their shriveled little peanuts to the very idea our self image might be inaccurate. "How dare they! We're the greatest nation on earth. Kofi and the U.N. and the CBC say so! Jack Layton! Tim Hortons! They wouldn't lie...." *poof* There goes another one. Their insistence on reading the comments in that link in such a literalist, fundamentalist manner is a complete mystery to me. I thought everybody knew the correct answer to such commentary is "Oh yeah? Well, your Momma... " Use your imagination.
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Abortion -
Keith Burgess-Jackson writes that Liberals are too elitist to trust most people with the freedom to make their own choices and asks why abortion is different:

Liberals dont really care about choice. First, they dont trust people to make good choices. Look at the rhetoric during and after the presidential election. To explain why President Bush was reelected, liberals say that the American people were ignorant (of relevant facts), stupid, or duped by devious Republicans. If only the American people would follow their more educated and intelligent betters, they would be fine.

His answer:

Giving women the choice to kill their fetuses keeps a lot of people working and keeps the money coming in to feminist coffers (largely through fear-mongering). Perhaps Im cynical, but I dont see liberals as principled defenders of individual choice. I see them as defenders of turf. Theyre motivated by self-interest, not altruism.

It is certainly unjust arbitrarily to deny legal marriage to persons who are capable of performing marital acts and entering into the marital relationship. So, for example, laws forbidding interracial marriages truly were violations of equality. ...laws that embody the judgment that marriage is intrinsically heterosexual are in no way analogous to laws against miscegenation. Laws forbidding whites to marry blacks were unjust, not because they embodied a particular moral view and thus violated the alleged requirement of moral neutrality; rather, they were unjust because they embodied an unsound (indeed a grotesquely false) moral view, one that was racist and, as such, immoral.

George undoubtedly means marital acts to include having children, and very likely he means demonstrating a healthy relationship between the sexes. Why do some who fight tooth and nail to get kids into the "right" school and the "right" after school program give every indication that they don't care who raises them? Do they think these programs will have a greater effect than a home? I'm not talking about intent of SSM couples here, which I don't question. Their kids have 90% or better odds of being straight and there's no example to follow. Respect and love are necessary but I doubt they alone are sufficient. Male - female intimacy is difficult and the way forward is not always obvious, but the rewards in overcoming difference are great.